Sonic Project Revenge (SHC '24 Demo)

Link: https://shc.zone/entries/contest2024/983

This is a simple one zone demo and what seems to be the beginnings of quite a big project. Let’s delve into it!

I think this entry is quite okay in terms of technical details. Sure, the menus are a mishmash of Sonic 2 and 3 and the title screen has no parallax, but it all functions and I’ve encountered few issues while playing the game. Though the Mosqui enemy seems a little buggy and disappears sometimes. May want to check that out.

The level design didn’t wow me, but I didn’t notice any major problems while playing through it. It was inoffensive.

The art may need some more work. Sure, it’s bright and colorful, but it’s kind of bright and colorful to the point of losing some contrast along the way… The BG islands are a little flat, and I’m not sure if mashing together two different cloud styles was the greatest idea.

And just as an aside, is the only reason why the zone is called “Viking Shores” because there are viking caps stuck on some fences?

The music seems original, which is why I’ll go more in depth there. There are some nice riffs there, but in general it quite quickly gets repetitive. I think it’d be worth working on developing your harmonic progressions and melodies. If you look at songs you like, you’ll notice that the underlying chords often sort of undergo a journey and cadence back. Study your favorite songs! Or even… maybe time for some music theory? Could be worth it!

Good melodies are also often singable. As fun as making loops is, try to give your harmony and individual melodic motifs a little sense of overarching narrative. It will pay off, I assure you.

The boss is flat out a miss. I don’t think recycling the Metropolis fight in such a way works here at all. Honestly scrap it and do something else.

With that said, I think it’s quite a pleasant hack right now and I am looking forward to its future.

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